Wastewater reuse in irrigation: short-term effect on soil carbon and nitrogen stocks in Brazilian semi-arid region

Abstract

The main process that opposes the Greenhouse Effect is called “carbon sequestration”, a phenomenon that essentially seeks to establish a dynamic balance between greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the immobilization of its elements, especially C and N. This work evaluated the stocks of carbon and nitrogen in soils of the Brazilian semi-arid submitted to irrigation with treated wastewater from domestic sewage. For this purpose, the carbon and nitrogen stocks in the soil of the semi-arid region of Brazil were compared for four different uses: Open Native Caatinga (ONC); Treated Wastewater Effluent Irrigation (TSEI); Surface Water Irrigation (SWI); and Traditional Rainfed Agriculture (TRA). The hypothesis considered in this research was that the application of treated effluents in agriculture, besides being an alternative that can mitigate the problem of water scarcity of the semiarid region, is also capable of influencing the storage capacity of C and N in the soil, due to its organic load. The results indicate that among the different land uses evaluated, soil C and N stocks were highest in ONC, and decreased with the agricultural land use. The greatest accumulation of C and N in Caatinga is due to the presence of forest litter, and the influence of irrigation with treated sewage effluent was not detected in the present study. It can be concluded that the contribution of vegetation residues to the soil surface is the main factor contributing to C and N storage.